Well we're all home and hopefully settled in, caught up on sleep, and able to function. I was really pleased with the turnout at the event this year. Our numbers were a little low coming into the weekend, but more and more people kept rolling in and registering on site. I personally never got a truck count, but am pretty sure we were right around 50 throughout the weekend. Due to rain and some other circumstances, some people left early making it tough to truly track how many trucks ended up there.
The weather was our biggest enemy. The weather reports starting on Monday were not positive and I hoped everything would shift or blow through before the weekend. It didn't anything but this.
THURSDAY:
My caravan pulled into the lot around 10pm local time, and to my surprise there were already about 10-12 trucks and a hoard of people hanging out anxiously awaiting the arrival of more and more people. The final count of trucks Thursday night was probably about 20-25.
FRIDAY:
It was a beautiful morning and some gloomy cloud off in the distance. We set up registration, opened vendor booths, had a catered lunch, car wash station was in full effect.....it was bright and hot and humid. Then it got really humid....and it rained. Hard. So hard that people took salvage in the hotel, while a bunch of us were stuck outside under popup tents, scurrying to pack up registration table, vendor booths, the tents themselves. All while lightning got closer and closer, and the rain got harder. After we were all packed up, the rain passed, and people started drying off their trucks....only for another wave of rain to come through. The radar looked horrible. lovely. The rain continued for a while but people got anxious and started driving around, running errands, checking out the local scene. The skies cleared by 4pm or so and we were back outside. By 6 or 7pm we were going to dinner at a local sports bar joint called Double Dogs. After dinner we were back in the parking lot hanging out as we syty'ers tend to do. RenzFab sponsored a mini poker tournament where Don Raist (Raist103) won a cruise control bracket, and Mike Renz won a typhoon bottle opener :lol:
SATURDAY:
I woke up at 7am and it looked great out. sun was starting to shine. Great! Took a shower and by the time I got out, it was dark outside. Uh oh. Check the weather and there was a storm system that reached all the way to Little Rock, AR. not good. So the committee gathered at the breakfast buffet and figured out a contingency plan if we got rained out, which we did. So we ended up nixing the track (it was fully closed) and rented out a local bowling alley and fun center (miniature golf, batting cages, arcade, etc) and setup our raffle in the happy birthday room. I think this made for the best kid's nats ever. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, the Auto-X crew wasn't letting the track closure ruin their fun and setup a track in the large parking lot we were using. We got back to the hotel around 5pm and got to watch some trucks make a bunch of passes through the autox, until finally the hotel president decided to shut us down due to insurance liabilities. We still got to have our fun and it was great of the hotel to allow it in the first place!
Next up was our grand dinner at the Federal Grove. A home cooking family style buffet of some of the best food you'll ever eat. I didn't see a single unhappy face or belly as we left the buffet. Well a few of us were a tad uncomfortable from overeating, but it was well worth it. From the dinner, a handful of people decided to go to the Test and Tune at the drag strip that was now open since the weather was clear...and the rest of the group went back to the hotel to hang out or to get nestled into a food coma.
The people from the track got back to the hotel around 11pm, and we setup a final call for raffle tickets and held the raffle and held our awards ceremony in front of a noisy waterfall practically in the dark. Not the ideal setup, but the weather had changed all of our plans for how and when things would occur, so we made the best of what we could.
Winners of Awards:
Here are the awards they won:
Thanks to all of our vendors:
And lastly, and far from least....Sportmachines. Sportmachines went above and beyond the call of duty to make this show happen and be a great event. They fabricated the awards, worked together with Stickerbomb to get all the stickers and printouts made, made the registration packets, handled registration, landed some of the other vendors to get sponsorships, and much more throughout the weeks leading up to the show, and at Bowling Green. It was a pleasure working with Tom planning this show, and he really stepped up to help, and donated an tubular a-arm setup which is not what he had planned on donating but I convinced him the attendees would love to see that sitting there in the raffle, and also a bunch of smaller things for the general raffle. Without Sportmachines this year could very well have been a flop, so show them some love and appreciation. They earned a Distinguished Sponsor trophy, a crystal trophy emblazed with their logo and sponsorship. Here is Tom (left) accepting the award from some sleep deprived balding guy (right):
We also really need to thank our local liaison Jim Minton. He was clutch in pointing us towards all our needs and was running around like a mad man getting me quotes on caterers, restaurants for group meals, making calls left and right, and steering us towards the best options. Without Jim, we would have been eating at the local Chinese buffet :lol: Also found a bunch of soda on sale, supplied a cooler, and did anything i'd possibly ask of him. Thanks a ton Jim! (still working on adding him to the board, he's recovering on vacation right now and will be added once he gets back.)
we'll have a pic up soon of the award winners. Thanks to all who attended!! Hopefully you had a great time and will come again next time. Sorry about the rain-outs but it was obviously out of our control, and we worked hard to make the show go on the best we could.
See you in 2015!
The weather was our biggest enemy. The weather reports starting on Monday were not positive and I hoped everything would shift or blow through before the weekend. It didn't anything but this.
THURSDAY:
My caravan pulled into the lot around 10pm local time, and to my surprise there were already about 10-12 trucks and a hoard of people hanging out anxiously awaiting the arrival of more and more people. The final count of trucks Thursday night was probably about 20-25.
FRIDAY:
It was a beautiful morning and some gloomy cloud off in the distance. We set up registration, opened vendor booths, had a catered lunch, car wash station was in full effect.....it was bright and hot and humid. Then it got really humid....and it rained. Hard. So hard that people took salvage in the hotel, while a bunch of us were stuck outside under popup tents, scurrying to pack up registration table, vendor booths, the tents themselves. All while lightning got closer and closer, and the rain got harder. After we were all packed up, the rain passed, and people started drying off their trucks....only for another wave of rain to come through. The radar looked horrible. lovely. The rain continued for a while but people got anxious and started driving around, running errands, checking out the local scene. The skies cleared by 4pm or so and we were back outside. By 6 or 7pm we were going to dinner at a local sports bar joint called Double Dogs. After dinner we were back in the parking lot hanging out as we syty'ers tend to do. RenzFab sponsored a mini poker tournament where Don Raist (Raist103) won a cruise control bracket, and Mike Renz won a typhoon bottle opener :lol:
SATURDAY:
I woke up at 7am and it looked great out. sun was starting to shine. Great! Took a shower and by the time I got out, it was dark outside. Uh oh. Check the weather and there was a storm system that reached all the way to Little Rock, AR. not good. So the committee gathered at the breakfast buffet and figured out a contingency plan if we got rained out, which we did. So we ended up nixing the track (it was fully closed) and rented out a local bowling alley and fun center (miniature golf, batting cages, arcade, etc) and setup our raffle in the happy birthday room. I think this made for the best kid's nats ever. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, the Auto-X crew wasn't letting the track closure ruin their fun and setup a track in the large parking lot we were using. We got back to the hotel around 5pm and got to watch some trucks make a bunch of passes through the autox, until finally the hotel president decided to shut us down due to insurance liabilities. We still got to have our fun and it was great of the hotel to allow it in the first place!
Next up was our grand dinner at the Federal Grove. A home cooking family style buffet of some of the best food you'll ever eat. I didn't see a single unhappy face or belly as we left the buffet. Well a few of us were a tad uncomfortable from overeating, but it was well worth it. From the dinner, a handful of people decided to go to the Test and Tune at the drag strip that was now open since the weather was clear...and the rest of the group went back to the hotel to hang out or to get nestled into a food coma.
The people from the track got back to the hotel around 11pm, and we setup a final call for raffle tickets and held the raffle and held our awards ceremony in front of a noisy waterfall practically in the dark. Not the ideal setup, but the weather had changed all of our plans for how and when things would occur, so we made the best of what we could.
Winners of Awards:
- Best in Show, Ty: Denny Raab, Sycho (white ty)
- Best in Show, Sy: Tyler Stevens, Maple Syrup (white sy)
- Furthest Travelled: Dave Perry, DaveP (2300mi ONE WAY from LA to BG!)
- Broken Truck: Jack Staples, Icarus-54 (fpr issues for the entire drive down from PA resulting in 10mpg)
- Most wildly modified: Tom Joy, Try Me
- Most Innovative Mod: Mike Hardman
- Cleanest: Tyler Stevens, Maple Syrup
- Most outside the box: Tom Joy, Try Me
- Wow Can't Believe it Made It!: PJ Sloan, Leroy (tranny broke last minute in his ty, and he had to scurry and bring his syclone instead)
Here are the awards they won:
Thanks to all of our vendors:
- Stickerbomb (designed the NATS logo, printed all of the banners and stickers and registration packet schwag, worked with the shirt vendor)
- K&J Precision (STOUT74 here on the board, donated the awesome billet stuff - 4l80e adapter, shift knob, and engraved the sweet rear diff cover for me, I mean for the raffle)
- RenzFab (donated a sheet metal upper intake, a brake kit, and some smaller items)
- Carbon34 (donated a carbon fiber core support, gauge pods, license plates (both sy and ty))
- Graphics Concepts (donated 3 full sets of oem decals), AFCO (donated coilovers)
- Forge Motorsports (donated a billet wastegate actuator)
- TurboTweak (sponsored the catered lunch on Friday)
- SyTy Apparel (donated some of their schwag)
And lastly, and far from least....Sportmachines. Sportmachines went above and beyond the call of duty to make this show happen and be a great event. They fabricated the awards, worked together with Stickerbomb to get all the stickers and printouts made, made the registration packets, handled registration, landed some of the other vendors to get sponsorships, and much more throughout the weeks leading up to the show, and at Bowling Green. It was a pleasure working with Tom planning this show, and he really stepped up to help, and donated an tubular a-arm setup which is not what he had planned on donating but I convinced him the attendees would love to see that sitting there in the raffle, and also a bunch of smaller things for the general raffle. Without Sportmachines this year could very well have been a flop, so show them some love and appreciation. They earned a Distinguished Sponsor trophy, a crystal trophy emblazed with their logo and sponsorship. Here is Tom (left) accepting the award from some sleep deprived balding guy (right):
We also really need to thank our local liaison Jim Minton. He was clutch in pointing us towards all our needs and was running around like a mad man getting me quotes on caterers, restaurants for group meals, making calls left and right, and steering us towards the best options. Without Jim, we would have been eating at the local Chinese buffet :lol: Also found a bunch of soda on sale, supplied a cooler, and did anything i'd possibly ask of him. Thanks a ton Jim! (still working on adding him to the board, he's recovering on vacation right now and will be added once he gets back.)
we'll have a pic up soon of the award winners. Thanks to all who attended!! Hopefully you had a great time and will come again next time. Sorry about the rain-outs but it was obviously out of our control, and we worked hard to make the show go on the best we could.
See you in 2015!
Last edited:
